Despite having attended a book signing (with Raymond E Feist), a Book Fair (with Bryan Cantrell), and having a ton of other fun things to mention, it took an email from Larry Brown to goad me into sharing something a mere seven months after the last rant. I might still overcome my apathy and blather on about those other things, but in the meantime, buckle up because here is a loooong book review (for four books)...
Vaka Sevah - A familiar alien outing
I read a book (a collection of two books, actually) entitled David Savakerrva way back in 2019 (I mentioned it on November 27)
Several months ago, the author, Larry Brown, reached out and asked if I would like to re-read those two books plus the two new books that would wrap up the story. So I happily read the Kindle versions of the books when I had time between November and December (NOTE: I am really not a fan of ebooks - especially when a good part of my planned reading time was in the car. The glare makes them so hard to read!).
There was a reason Larry asked me to re-read the first two books - they've received new titles and have also been updated. The new titles (of the first two books) and the two new books are:
Vaka Sevah, Book 1 - The Great Ice
Vaka Sevah, Book 2 - The Greater Sand
Vaka Sevah, Book 3 - The Mystical Heights
Vaka Sevah, Book 4 - Illik Toh
There's also a new web site for the series: vakasevah.com
So why the new title? In the Preface, the omniscient narrator reveals the reason:
And due to a mistranslation of an alien term, Sava Kerrva has, more precisely, been replaced by Vaka Sevah.
Is there another reason for the rewrite/title change? I have no idea.
A note about this series: There are so many characters, locations and alien language verbiage in these books that I soon abandoned all hope of keeping them straight in the narrative. Some of the more active characters and locations did become easier to remember by name over time, though. There's also a little bit of conversation in several different alien languages, so that took some effort to decipher, too.
I wrote a pretty decent review (five years ago) of Books One and Two, but as these books have been rewritten (how extensively I couldn't say - I don't remember much from 5 years ago), I suppose I'll give it another go...
The protagonist in Vaka Sevah is a 14 year-old boy named Garth. Much like Harry Potter, he's an orphan who has had a horrible life (though in the state's care, not with horrible relatives). While you can't help but feel some sympathy for him, he's also a teenager who is equal parts annoying and immature. But he did grow on me over time.
As I was reading, the similarity of the alien language and the completely foreign/alien character names in Vaka Sevah reminded me a lot of Dune (which I recently re-read when I picked up the new deluxe hardcover), or even Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit. It took me a while, as it did originally with each of the aforementioned works, to become familiar with the unfamiliar words as I was reading.
The alien landscape/characters of Corrahg also brought to mind a demented version of Alice in Wonderland, which tells you just how odd Corrahg is, since Wonderland is a pretty demented place. There are definitely a lot of steampunk-ish elements to the story, too. Corrahg is an interesting juxtaposition of low and high tech.
Here's a really long excerpt from Book 2 (it's a few pages long) that is filled with names and alien words to give you a feel for the difficulty I had with the alien names and maybe a taste of the Alice in Wonderlandness. In this excerpt, the "Soot" character has kidnapped our young protagonist to curry favor with the G'mach - the aliens who have invaded the world Garth was brought to. Garth has escaped and is doing his best to evade capture in the alien landscape.
Misery inflamed every step. Snagged by branches and clawed by vines, Garth nearly missed the underworld's scorch and gale. Fear raked him like thorny boughs, but nothing unnerved like the unknown. Soot had taken him for a reason, and Garth wondered if it involved the Kavahl.
The recent past now seemed a blur. But before the Cave of the Beast, Dahkaa had said the G'mach would finish the Kavahl in seventeen moons. So, what was it now? Fifteen or less? And if Dahkaa had died, then what about his plan to unite with the tribes? Was that dead, too?
Garth plowed on. Crashing through brush, he heard no Feehj! and felt no blows. In fact, by the occasional crack of a heavy branch, Soot sounded like he trailed at least ten feet behind.
Not much separation, not yet. But if they continued through these vines and briars? Widen the gap by a a few more feet, and the brush behind Garth might just block Soot from view.
And then?
And then, Garth realized, he'd have nothing to lose. Ducking and weaving, he pushed through the brush with all he had. He charged on for a solid minute, then, gasping and spent, he looked back.
Branches and vines blocked like a wall.
No Soot.
Garth bolted like a hound. Staying low and running fast, he careened left and right on whatever path opened up. No other sound penetrated his crackle and thrash, so if Soot was shouting or shooting? Garth couldn't tell. He flew into thistles square in his path then, squirming and clawing, he broke from the forest and tumbled down a hill.
He slid to the edge of a creek. A mirror-smooth blue, the water reflected a face he barely knew. Soot blackened his skin, blood seeped from scratches and welts - and he didn't care. Lurching into the creek, he splashed cold water into his mouth.
Electric, the slaking, every marvelous gulp charged him back up. He drank and swallowed and drank some more, then, drinking too fast, he coughed. Hating the need to breathe, Garth lifted his head. And watched, vaguely concerned, the passing of a sock.
Garth looked upstream. Ragged shirts and pants, knitted socks and skirts - clothes from both sexes had been tied to a wash line in the creek. But as for a washer?
Garth saw only water, a stream about thirty feet wide. Cattail-size weeds lined its muddy banks, and for hundreds of yards to either side, the blue-green flora stood dense and tall. Thrilled by the cover, he wondered if the water and weeds heralded a change, some break in his chain of relentless bad luck.
A branch cracked in the forest he'd just left.
Garth scrambled to his feet. Avoiding the mud, he sprinted on riverbank stones, then dove into the chest-high weeds.
He stayed low and crawled, but compared to the forest, progress came fast. Restored by water and free of the thorns, he reveled in escape, this sanctuary of weeds.
And hair?
He stopped. Squinting between the weedy stalks, he discerned a wild brown mane framing a shadowed, staring face.
Garth didn't move. But the weeds did, and as a breeze teased the stalks, the waves of sway revealed a second shadowed face, then a third. Advancing with a quiet, well-practiced stealth, the shadows crept his way.
Garth backed up. First at a crawl, then in a crouch, he sprinted until he reached the creek.
He stopped and peeked out. Still no Soot; the brushy tree line looked clear.
He splashed across the creek. The far side mirrored the weeds he'd just left, but halfway across, he spotted a wind-rippled tangle of long brown hair.
Shadows and hair both ahead and behind, Garth stopped in mid-stream. They human-faced strangers showed no weapons, but… muddy and grungy, they looked like hunters waiting for prey.
"Yai el?"
A woman's voice spun Garth around. Shoreline weeds quivered, and then she emerged. Some kind of primordial Eve, she wore only mud. And, perhaps just an afterthought, the makings of a skirt.
"Yai ahh," she sighed. Her greeting confounded him, but not as much as her smile. With no shyness or fright, it perfectly suited her languid advance. This Woman of the Weeds slid her toes into riverbank ooze and, with easy undulations, sloshed toward Garth.
Not knowing where to look, too shy for her eyes and everything south, he focused on her hair. Flowered thistles wove through her long, tangled shocks. But unlike her skin, her hair looked glossy and clean. The dark tresses snaked into her cleavage, then tucked under a skirt flap, some iridescent wrap spun, best guess, from dragonfly wings.
The woman circled Garth. Slowly closed in. Shin-deep in the creek, yet basting in sweat, Garth felt the tug of her gaze. The light off the creek lit the green of her eyes, but depending on the angle, the shade shifted from muted moss to fiery jade. A moth to her flame, Garth knew he shouldn't stare, but he couldn't stop. He felt an inescapable tug to this primal she, and as the Woman of the Weeds circled in, she playfully turned.
The spell of her gaze momentarily checked, Garth noticed what she'd done with her hair. Routed around her waist, it dangled to the creek like a long, braided tail.
"Ta lef!" she shrieked, and spinning around, the woman yanked two spikes from her hair and lunged for Garth.
A gunshot banged.
The Woman of the Weeds arched back.
"Rohf!" shouted Soot. One muzzle smoking on his two-barrel gun, he stepped from the forest and gestured toward Garth. "Sha rohf, Vaka Sevah!"
The woman looked back at Garth. Her smolder gone cold, she regarded the boy in the creek with an incredulous tilt of her head.
"Vaka Sevah?" Gruff and close, a new voice rose. Riverbank weeds shivered apart before a spiked-steel ball at the end of a jeweled handle. It resembled a medieval mace, and the man who held it wore a long coat with a squarish cut. The garment had a military look, but the man - roughly fifty, Garth guessed - the man's quick, rattish glances and scraggly hair cast him more as a deserter, someone forever on the run.
"Teh Vaka," Soot answered, pointing to Garth. "Teh Vaka Sevah!"
The Woman of the Weeds snickered. Then chuckled. Ripping a mirthful snort, she doubled up with laughter and buckled into the creek.
"Der kek!" scolded the Man with the Mace.
It took a moment, but she stifled her mirth. Stowing the spikes back in her hair, the woman who bewitched one moment and nearly butchered in the next slid onto a rock.
The Man with the Mace peered at Garth, then nodded to the woman. "S'lek," he said.
Still infected with a smirk, the Woman of the Weeds - S'lek, her apparent name - feigned a bow toward Garth.
The Man with the Mace gestured to himself - " Kahbahk," he announced, apparently his name - then nodded to Garth. "Vaka Sevah - oove?"
Startled by the word - oove means yes - Garth realized these people of the weeds sounded like Eylahn and the herd. They spoke the tongue of the Worms, but if he answered their question and confirmed who he was, would they kill me right here?
"I - " Garth wobbled in the creek's unstable mud. "Vaka Sevah, oove," he said, touching his chest. "Oove."
Kahbahk's eyes narrowed. He stroked his shaggy goatee, then eyed Garth's dirty fur vest. Then he clicked his tongue.
A little boy and girl emerged from the weeds. No more than eight years old, each had golden ringlet curls that reminded Garth of angels; porcelain cherubs sprung to life.
The children dragged out a leather bag. Wondering what it contained, Garth also wondered at the mace-like design inked onto the children's arms.
Kahbahk opened the bag. He dug through a sparkling clatter of jewelry and gems, then retrieved a metal square the size of his palm. Knowing he'd seen such a thing before - didn't Logaht use that in the cave? - Garth watched Kahbahk snap it open, then tilt it toward the creek.
Rays of light swept the creek's surface. But instead of Garth's grades, they formed an image of Garth. Front view and side, the same picture projected to the Worms by Atta Ra now shimmered on the creek. Trying to keep up, Garth recalled the Blood General's words. Didn't he say the G'mach had offered a reward - passage to another world - for whoever brought the Vaka Sevah to Elka?
"Vel!" shouted Soot. His scabbed lips cracking a grin, he hurried to the edge of the creek. "Cho Vaka Sevah, cho vel!"
Kahbahk gestured Wait!
Soot slid to a stop in the mud.
Kahbahk dug deeper into the bag, and Garth watched him pull out a few chunks of - coal? It resembled coal, but yellow veins marbled each chunk. Garth knew he'd seen the stuff before, but too distracted to recall the when or where, he next saw Kahbahk lift out a shiny silver box. He unlatched the lid, reached inside, then gingerly retrieved a small glass vial.
"Vel!" exclaimed Soot. Losing all restraint, he charged into the creek. Soot splashed toward Kahbahk, but his gaze stayed fixed on the vial, on the blue liquid sparkling within. "Skoh vel, skoh vel!" Soot repeated, and dropping his gun, he grabbed the vial. His hands shaking, he popped open the top and shook blue drops onto his palm.
Kahbahk grabbed back the vial. Soot didn't care. Focused on the blue drops, he rubbed the honey-thick substance into a steamy foam, then slathered his face.
Soot screamed. Riveted by the sight, Garth watched the lather dry, then slough away like old snakeskin.
Soot grabbed the small silver box. His painful scream receding into moans, he peered into the mirror-like finish and checked his face.
Still a boiled-crab shade of red, his color hadn't changed. But as Soot gaped and Garth looked on, no quiver animated his skin. The squirms had gone. Soot hooted and hollered, splashed a fine jig, and a happier man Garth had never seen. Soot tossed up some water and exulted once more, then turned to Kahbahk and went still.
His arm cocked and ready to throw, Kahbahk gripped his mace.
"Ah - Vaka Sevah?" asked Soot, nodding to Garth.
Kahbahk smiled.
click here to show the full quoted excerpt
If you read the 2019 review, you may notice that the excerpt above, while very similar to the excerpt I shared then, is a little different (beyond just "Savakerrva" becoming "Vaka Sevah").
Another interesting thing about the above excerpt is that some of the characters mentioned in the excerpt come back in a later book - transforming from their original degenerate states into more noble characters - and actually volunteering to assist with Garth's mission. This is something I had no way of knowing would be the case when I saved the above block of text to share five years ago.
Here's another excerpt from the book I shared in my 2019 review to give you a feel for the steampunkness of the aliens/alien world. This excerpt features the most steampunk of all the characters in the story: Torgen Betugen.
Banging open the door, Torgen burst from his high-tower room.
He leapt down a narrow staircase. The passage was tight, and the bazooka-like tube strapped to his back scraped every wall.
Torgen jumped onto a corridor landing and charged toward a wall. A brick wall, by all appearance, but when he lowered his shoulder and sprinted full out, he crashed through a plaster façade.
Torgen fell three feet, then landed on a platform in a dark, vertical shaft. Already descending, the platform quivered as it dropped; the unpowered freight lift plunged straight down. Pulleys whined with increasing speed, and Torgen braced for the jarring end.
The elevator slammed to a stop. Torgen tumbled off, then rocked to his feet in a cellar's quiet gloom. Hurrying through near-darkness, he splashed through puddles and ducked leaky pipes. The cellar's only light beckoned ahead, a grimy window in a garage-like door.
He stopped before an inclined cargo ramp. It led up to the door, but Torgen focused on what the ramp held.
A dozen blankets draped a large, bullet-shaped mass.
He whipped off the blankets. Staring a moment, he watched the weak light gleam on the object's sleek coppery skin.
Torgen crouched beside its cylindrical form. He inspected the rope tread on the centerline wheel, then checked both wooden skids. The tire showed rodent bites, and the runners some rot. The long wait had taken its toll, but if he had survived, then maybe -
Torgen slid his hand across her smooth ceramic skin and tapped the reinforced nose.
Solid, no give.
He moved to the control nozzles - one pair in front, the other pair aft - and tested each swivel and mount.
No binding, no kinks.
Torgen peered into the big, horizontally-mounted drive nozzle, then blew it clean. A whirl of dust made him cough, but when he touched the nozzle interior, he felt no syrupy residue. Grateful no fuel had leaked, he knew he'd need every ounce.
Pulse increasing, he ran his fingers over the rigging, the exterior lines to the four control nozzles.
Good tension, no frays.
Torgen grabbed a handhold. He swung up his leg as if mounting a horse, then settled onto the narrow seat. Rock hard, but they always were, at least until things got warm. He stuffed the bazooka-like tube into a leather holster, then lifted dark goggles off the throttle lever. He blew dust off the lenses and strapped them on, then grabbed his helmet. Torgen pulled it over his head, and it felt a little tight.
He nearly smiled. Not a complete waste, all these torpid months. At least he'd grown more hair.
Torgen checked the faceplate that covered the right half of his face. He swung it open and shut, then eyed the leather bag beside his left knee. He reached in, removed a spiny gourd, then shook it - gently - near his ear. Three shakes later, it rattled.
He eased the gourd back into the bag, then pulled on his ragged gloves. His routine nearly complete, he grabbed the orange cord near his right knee.
He took a long breath. Should he just ignore the message? Pretend it never arrived? Could he just sleep through the end of the world?
Torgen yanked the cord.
Sparks firefly'd around the four small control nozzles and the big drive nozzle behind. Air hissed, fuel flash-banged and smoked, and after years of slumber, the sand rocket awoke.
Torgen wrapped the nozzle control lines around his right glove. His machine now reined, he grabbed the throttle lever with his left hand. Then, looking up, he eyed the cargo ramp, the twenty-foot incline to the wide, closed door.
A trip wire waited halfway up.
Torgen rotated the control nozzles with deft tugs of his lines. Gripping the throttle, he felt the motor shiver. Disaster loomed, he knew. His violent end waited outside. But the Soren Borel didn't just live with a scream, he knew.
They die in the flame.
Torgen closed his eyes. And missed, with an ache, the days he had believed it was true.
He slammed up his throttle. Combusting fuel boomed, the drive nozzle bellowed, and as the fourteen-foot rocket blazed up the ramp and tripped the wire, the door sprang open and up.
Launching into Elka's blue twilight, Torgen Betugen hollered the Cry of Ascent, the Soren Borel's call to war.
click here to show the full quoted excerpt
There is a very quick reference to Frank Herbert's Dune in Book 1, but an even greater resemblance to Dune is found in the residents of the brutal scorched-side culture of Corrahg (Corrahg is like Mercury - one side always faces the sun, the other never faces the sun), who are very similar to Dune's Fremen - although they are possibly even a little less compassionate than the Fremen of Dune. These desert-dwellers even share the same white-less eyes (though the whites of the eyes are not blue, as they are in Dune, they're black).
The Dune reference is near the end of this lengthy excerpt.
Dahkaa sat in the snow. Brooding between boulders on the wind-whistled cliff, he ignored the fleeting greens and flitting blues, the auroral elations high overhead. Unmoved by the lights and ignoring the cold, he pondered, instead, the silver-gray moon.
"So that's it?" Garth shivered near the cave. "We're done?"
Dahkaa didn't respond.
"I mean, what happens now? You'll just - take me home?"
Dahkaa gathered his breath. "I must."
Garth bit his tongue. He wanted to holler and punch the air, but since he still needed a lift back home, he tried to sound subdued. "Okay, well, whenever you're ready, I'll be inside." His nightmare unwinding, he stepped toward the cave.
"It's always the same?" Dahkaa asked.
Garth paused.
"Your moon," Dahkaa continued. "Its face never moves?"
Garth looked up at the moon. "Never," he replied. "Down here - to us looking up, it always looks the same."
Garth waited for an acknowledgement but heard only wind. About to duck inside, he realized the enormity of the moment, this once-in-a-lifetime chance. Didn't people dream about meeting aliens? Could he learn a thing or two?
"What about your world?" Garth asked. "Does it also have a moon?"
"We have two."
"Yeah?" Forgetting the chill, Garth moved toward Dahkaa. "Amazing, that's - well, this whole thing's amazing. Even just our talking, you know? I mean, how come your English is so good?"
"I studied."
Dahkaa's answer stung. But poor grades or not, Garth's curiosity persisted.
"Your moons," Garth continued, moving closer in. "Do they look like ours?"
"Oh . . ." Dahkaa rubbed his eyes. "Just as my world is different, so also are its moons. And while our greater moon marks our months, the lesser counts our nights."
"You mean days?"
"I mean nights. We have no days," Dahkaa said, pulling out his straight knife. "Not on my side. And because our planet refuses to turn, because our cold side freezes while the hot side burns?, we call our world Corrahg."
Two ragged syllables rippled with brogue, "Corrahg" boxed the ears. "Huh," Garth managed, suddenly grateful for a world that knew how to turn. "Sounds nice."
"Corrahg is anything but, the word means ‘cursed.' Our climate kills both man and beast, and nothing about it has been, is, or ever will be nice." Dahkaa stabbed a snowdrift. "And though a thin strip of green divides our world, that more agreeable slice has caused uncounted wars. So we call it, our lovely swath of grass and trees, the Bloodlands."
Intrigued by a place more dangerous than Detroit, Garth waited for more.
"Though in truth, all my world has bled," Dahkaa intoned, now carving a twenty-inch circle into the snow. "The tribes of the Greater Sand have battled our Great Ice clans since the first throw of a stone, and we only know peace when there's too few to fight." His carving complete, he scooped out the snow and set it on a rock. "But your world's different, I suppose? Your tribes and clans live without war?"
Garth wondered where to start.
"If they do, they'd be the first." Dahkaa rounded the corners of the chunk of snow. "From what I've seen, men fight for the best reasons and also the worst. And sometimes no reason at all. So, by the evidence? We seem to be the work of some very angry gods."
The word surprised Garth. "Gods?"
"From the stories of Logaht, his travels to far worlds . . . wherever you find our kind, you also find gods. Not the same ones, of course. The gods of the stars seem as varied as us," Dahkaa said. "And I certainly see the same on my world. For though my clans of the Ice have five gods, the tribes of the Sand worship seven. Then, of course, we have the Worms."
The word evoked miles-long monsters with crystalline teeth. "Worms - from the sand?" Garth asked. "They're huge?"
"The Worms, David . . ." Dahkaa scratched his nose with his knife. "The Worms are people. Who, like their namesake, lack any semblance of spine." Resuming his work, he smoothed the snow into a sphere.
"Sorry, I don't understand."
"Nor do I. Because once long ago, they were our best, our most promising sons and daughters from both the hot side and cold. But . . ." Dahkaa pulled out his flask. "Tired of the wars between the tribes and clans, the Worms made a home in the Bloodlands, a place where everything old would die to the new. You can guess the result?"
"They failed?"
"They prevailed. Ancient oaths were buried. Men of the ice married women of the sand, and never again did they fight. Instead, the Worms built their dream. Elka, they called it, the City of Peace." Dahkaa sipped again. "And while clans and tribes continued to war, Elka prospered, never bled. But then - "
Footsteps scraped from inside the cave.
"Then came the G'mach," Dahkaa said.
click here to show the full quoted excerpt
As with both of the earlier quoted excerpts, you will also find the text of this one has changed in many ways from the text in the previous version of the story.
Thus concluded my original review of David Savakerrva. And I see no reason to add anything new that I didn't mention five years ago. Granted, there are a million things I could mention that I found very interesting, but there's a fine line between "reviewing" a book and giving away major plot elements for future readers. I've tried to toe that line carefully.
Book Three introduces us to yet another geographic region of Corrahg that was mentioned as more of a myth than an actual location in the earlier books. In my mind's eye, this place is kind of a cross between Seattle and Florida (swamps and endless cloud cover/rain). The denizens of this bleak land are every bit as hard and unforgiving as the desert-dwelling tribes or ice-dwelling Viking-like Zahlen (Dahkaa is a Zahlen) we were introduced to in the earlier books.
There are a few characters who join Garth's fellowship from this book - but one stands out head and shoulders above the rest for me: Ulassen. In my mind's eye, she's Red Sonja (without the red hair or chain-mail bikini, though).
"Or perhaps," a woman said from the shadows, "he's not just here for our warmth and cheer."
Garth turned toward a shadowed table. A young woman relaxed in a high-back chair. Weak candlelight glimmered on her dark eyes, and tousled black hair teased the cleavage of her chain-mail blouse. Holding a pair of small round fruits, she squeezed their juice into a mug.
"You're right." Garth dug into his pants pocket. "I'm here for a reason, and I'm supposed to say …" He tried his other pocket. "I rode with the Mohg!" he announced, and he yanked out the coin.
The woman squeezed out a last drop of juice. In no hurry, she rose from her seat. Garth noticed her boots stopped at mid-thigh, and she walked the old floor without a sound.
Stopping before Garth, she held out her hand. He placed the coin in her palm.
She looked at one side, then the other, then rubbed its serrated edge across her cheek.
"One more?" the innkeeper asked.
"One more." The woman flipped him the coin.
The innkeeper caught it, then tossed it into a pail beside the haggard old woman with the long, slender pipe. The coin hit dozens more with a solid clink, and the woman shot the innkeeper a wink. "I still got it, huh? I still bring ‘em in."
The innkeeper refilled her mug. And by his sigh, he likely did it for free.
"Be quick," the woman with the fruit said to Garth. "The reason you're here is …?"
Still a bit muddled, Garth wondered what to say. He couldn't just beg for help, he needed to win her over, build trust. "I'm here because - "
Her blouse moved. Trying not to look, Garth perceived motion under her chain mail links.
"Yes?" the woman prompted, watching Garth's eyes.
"I need help."
"Every man does," the woman replied.
"I mean not for me, not just for me, but-"
Her blouse moved again.
"There's this river, alright?" Garth tied his gaze to hers. "No one knows it's there, but if it is, we could use it to stop Atta Ra, er, Ora Mek, understand? We could stop his - "
A blue tail flicked over her blouse's neckline. Garth watched the tail quiver, then slip back under the links.
"What - what's under your blouse?"
The gambler banged down his can.
"He said what?"
"I mean …"
The innkeeper brandished his mop, the one-armed man slammed down his pail, and every patron glared at Garth.
"Look," Garth began, "I was told to look for something blue, but the only blue I've seen just popped out of your - I mean, over your - "
The mop slammed into Garth's back. "Take him!" the innkeeper yelled. "Get him out."
...
A blue lizard peeked over her chain mail. Looking at Garth, it flicked its tongue.
"Watch your eyes," the woman said. "A blue pitkin has bite."
...
"What she knows," a man at her table said, "is how to kill a man eleven different ways." Obscured by his ornately carved chair, he wore a high-collared coat. "And unless you join us for ale, I'll show her a twelfth."
...
"In here," the pitkin woman said, "we dream of being somewhere else." She dipped her finger into Garth's pail, then pulled out a fingertip of foam.
The lizard licked it off.
...
"When Ora Mek arrived - " Ulassen took back the jug. "He didn't just take power, he took whatever he pleased. And when his guards in their masks dragged me to his tent, everyone watched. No one moved. No one...but my husband."
"He saved you?" Garth asked.
"He ran."
click here to show the full quoted excerpt
Maybe I see her as Red Sonja, despite being a brunette, for more than just wearing chain mail. Ulassen is tough, attractive, and independent, and apparently a champion of the underdog - just like Red Sonja.
While I'm not mentioning a million other things that happened in book three, don't think that's because nothing else worth mentioning happened - I'm just trying to avoid those dreaded spoilers.
In Book Four, the ever-hapless hero Garth takes a trip to a new planet: Illik Toh (not really a spoiler - it's right there in the title), the home world of the dreaded, evil G'mach.
Illik Toh is about what you'd expect for a planet inhabited by the G'mach - there's a very clear delineation between the haves and have-nots...so, it's pretty much like any planet with an industrialized society.
Sparkling rivers meandered toward a vast, azure sea. A large harbor cut into the coast just a few miles away, but unlike the rivers and sea, it held heaps and swaths of debris. Splintered wood and rags, smoldering refuse and smoky pyres, rotting hills of organic matter and rust -colored glints... criss-crossed by a few navigation channels, the harbor sheltered islands of trash. Garth squinted through the smoky haze. A miles-long peninsula defined the harbor's edge. It looked like a breakwater with a fifty-foot wall, but judging by the patchwork construction of rusty metal and broken wood - by every tilted window and door? The breakwater wall looked more like a town, a hive of homes built from trash.
Sparkling rivers meandered toward a vast, azure sea. A large harbor cut into the coast just a few miles away, but unlike the rivers and sea, it held heaps and swaths of debris. Splintered wood and rags, smoldering refuse and smoky pyres, rotting hills of organic matter and rust -colored glints...criss-crossed by a few navigation channels, the harbor sheltered islands of trash. Garth squinted through the smoky haze. A miles-long peninsula defined the harbor's edge. It looked like a breakwater with a fifty-foot wall, but judging by the patchwork construction of rusty metal and broken wood - by every tilted window and door? The breakwater wall looked more like a town, a hive of homes built from trash.
...
A vertically designed city - three cities? - sat on massive steel disks. The largest city occupied the lowest disk, and the smallest occupied the top. The layout looked like a three-tier wedding cake - but instead of a straight-up stack ? Squinting again, he noted the three platters rested on an angled support, a massive half-arch anchored to the base of a snow-covered peak. The mountain's melting snow formed a waterfall, and a cascading stream of water fell into the smallest city, the glittering skyline on top. More surprising, each city skyline resembled ocean waves. The lower-level buildings had a deep blue tint, but the blues of the upper cities lightened as they climbed. Sea-green shades flashed here and there, and the tallest heights looked like whitecaps in a storm.
...
An open-air platform rested on twin wooden hulls. Translucent blue fabric rippled on the platform like an Arabian tent. Outstretched bird wings framed the tent on either side, and suddenly Atta Ra's Marauder and his armed G'mach seemed weirdly out of place. Anything but menacing, the flying "tent craft" inspired thoughts of flying carpets and sheiks.
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And my favorite character is in the thick of things in book four as well, but unlike Red Sonja who battles bad guys with her trusty sword, Ulassen fights with whatever might be handy - in this case a slingshot created from her jewelry -
Ulassen pulled a metal frame from her left boot. Shaped like a figure-8, the frame had been wrapped with an elastic band. She quickly unwound the band, then fastened it to the upper part of the frame. The G'mach approached with his weapon. He still gave no sign that he'd seen Ulassen, but as he lifted his gaze and peered overhead, he perceived the outline of the ramp's ghostly edge. Ulassen pulled off one of her olive-size earrings. Working fast, she loaded it into the elastic band, then, gripping the lower part of the frame, she held it like a slingshot.
...
Ulassen ducked beside the bedroll. The claw-tip spear whooshed past her ear. The weapon struck the marble head and clattered to the floor, but before the G'mach could try again, Ulassen pulled back the elastic band, took aim, and fired. The earring smacked the young guard square in his chest. Bursting on impact, the projectile released a cloud of green dust. The G'mach staggered and wheezed.
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We also meet some transplants from one of the many worlds conquered by the G'mach on Illik Toh - the primals.
Eight feet tall and four hundred pounds, a thick-muscled goliath strode toward Garth. More man than ape, he wore ragged hides over his shoulders and loins. Sinewy legs rippled with strength, and long, dark hair framed his whiskered face. His chin and brow had a Neanderthal prominence, but the spark in his eyes hinted at some kind of - intelligence? Atta Ra stepped into his path. A strange sight, the seven-foot Ninth Progress facing a larger being. Stranger still, the goliath neither slowed nor changed his course.
...
Two giant hands seized his branch cradle-bed. Suddenly anchored, Garth followed the rise of well-muscled arms to bulging shoulders and an overhang of chest. A thumb-size pendant hung around a thick, rippled neck, and the way the bull primal's lip curled over his teeth, he looked at Garth like a wolf over a sheep.
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Here's one last story element that I really enjoyed: a battle scene straight out of The Hobbit (I apologize for what may be a few spoilers here).
Steel wheels with claw-print treads smashed over rubble and chewed into grass. Belching white steam and black smoke, twenty kuga tanks roared out of Elka toward the northern plateau.
...
"Slow!" shouted Onaho, only half-dressed. "Slow down!" Chasing the lead tank, he lugged his Z-rifle, blades, and a satchel of radiance stone. "Hold that dragon, I'm coming up!" He tossed his rifle onto the back of the tank, then clambered aboard. Winded, he pulled on his leather shirt near the psh-psht clatter of the tank's running gear.
...
Men in rags raced out of the rubble and toward the plateau. Some had bricks and clubs, a few had guns, and all followed the tracks of the tanks.
"Ha!" Onaho hoisted his rifle in a salute. "Elka's men run toward the fight?"
....
A sand rocket thundered overhead. Ten more streaked in pursuit. Buzzing the steam tanks and loaded with bombs, they skimmed the grass and climbed toward the plateau.
As big as a battleship, a G'mach Firestorm gunship shimmered into view. Another appeared to its left. A third materialized on the right. Then four more Firestorms slipped into sight. Engines thrumming, seven black gunships hovered over smoking flowers and charring grass.
...
Ozlyk looked back toward the bay. The ship now hovered near a pack of icebergs. The ray shooting up still aimed at the violet moon, but its color had changed, its intensity as well. No longer green, the ray shimmered bright blue.
"Derr elz," Ozlyk rasped. "Derr elz!"
Gunship weapon ports banged open. Ramping power shook the plateau. Muzzles glowing, hundreds of weapons from seven gunships tracked the ship that was shooting the moon.
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There were actually a lot of clever twists throughout the story that I hadn't seen coming and despite the challenge of keeping all the unfamiliar names/languages straight, I really enjoyed the entirety of Vaka Sevah from beginning to end.
So if you're in the mood for some quality Science Fiction, give the Vaka Sevah books a read. I wish they were printed together in a massive Hardcover tome, but I understand that I may be in a minority of people who prefer to read physical books.
